October 11, 2010

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Wizards Announces Duel Decks: Knights vs Dragons

by Dredd77

Today Wizards announced the next in the series of Duel Decks, Knights vs Dragons! You can read the article here, but aficionados of heraldry take note- any similarities to the Rebel Alliance are strictly coincidental!

So lots of cool dragons to pick from when assembling the deck. But knights will be trickier. Probably Knight Examplar to boost other knights. Silver knight for its protection from red. Southern paladin, to destroy red permanents.

It does sound like it’d be a fun one, though. I’m enjoying the pattern they’re seeming to follow here, where they alternate theme and Planeswalker duel decks… makes you wonder what the one after Knights vs Dragons will be!

Hmmm … let me think … there are exactly two Knights to build a deck on that spring to my mind: Knight Exemplar and Kinsbaile Chavalier …

On the other side, let’s start with Voracious Dragon taking a seat in front of a plate full of deliciously served goblins (@Prophylaxis: so much for low cost creatures …) Just in case the poor little guys are cooling down, Ancient Hellkite brings back the heat, asssisted by Flameblast Dragon who says hello to everyone from Jund. For those who need to leave earlier, Hellkite Charger helps to hurry …

I mean, how unfair can a Duel Deck like this ever get? There’s an army of high class rare dragons to choose from whereas the knights however noble they might be can merely hope to outrace their opponents in a White Weenie strategy …

Supplemental: Of course, knights can go for color hate (Southern Paladin, Lightwielder Paladin or Paladin en Vec), but that seems a little awkward to me and way out of the flavor of honor and nobleness …

Agreed. One thing we learned from the debacle that was Anthologies was this: prot-hate is a bit of an unfun mechanic in precons. It introduces a swingier element to the game- who lucks into their prot-critter first? In later sets they’ve largely disappeared, though they brought it in for Duel Decks: Divine vs Demonic, but made sure to give the Demonic player tools to counter it (via sacrifice).